1. Field
The following description relates to a regenerative cell extraction unit and system, and more particularly, to a system for extracting regenerative cells such as fat-derived stem cells by centrifuging fat tissue and an extraction unit used in the system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Stem cells are defined as cells that have clonogenic and self-renewing capabilities and that differentiate into multiple cell lineages. Whereas embryonic stem cells are derived from mammalian embryos in the blastocyst stage and have the ability to generate any terminally differentiated cell in the body, adult stem cells are part of tissue-specific cells of the postnatal organism into which they are committed to differentiate.
Adult stem cells offer practical advantages over embryonic stem cells. Unlike the latter, they do not raise any ethical issue, and can be extracted from the patient himself. They are in abundant supply and are intrinsic to various tissues of the human body. The most accessible sources of adult stem cells are the bone marrow, peripheral blood, umbilical cord blood and possibly adipose tissues, as indicated by recent studies. These cells are capable of maintaining, generating and replacing terminally differentiated cells within their own specific tissue as a consequence of physiologic cell turnover or tissue damage due to injury.
Such capability, known as cell plasticity, has led to the development of therapeutic applications targeting the regeneration of defected tissues, with the goal to restore the physiology and functionality of the affected organ. Adult stem cells can give rise to hematopoiteic cells as known since many decades, but as found in recent years can also give rise to blood vessels, muscles, bone, cartilage, skin, neurons etc. Such cells are known as mesenchymal stem cells. In addition, platelets prepared as platelets concentrate can be used to accelerate wound healing, and consequently can play a role in regenerative medicine to help in the reconstruction of tissues like bone, skin or other tissues.
Fat tissue has recently been found to contain large amounts of stem cells, progenitor cells and matrix suitable for therapeutic applications. Also, fat tissue is a rich source of endothelial cells that promote the growth of new blood vessels and stimulate the growth of stem and progenitor cells, thereby contributing to tissue regeneration.
While many devices have been developed to collect cells from fat tissue, they are not efficient in extracting fat tissue or are not fully automated—that is, of all processes from collecting fat tissue to processing the fat tissue, some processes should be performed manually. In addition, since these devices are not sealed completely, fat tissue is exposed to a risk of contamination while being collected and processed.
Accordingly, there is a need for the development of a device which can automatically perform all processes from collecting fat tissue to processing the fat tissue in a sealed state and can increase the purity of regenerative cells extracted from the fat tissue.